It is known that one of the biggest issues with democracy is the fact that it treats all citizens as equals, despite the fact that inequality exists within each one of us.
How do we deal with this issue, in a way that is not only effective, but could also realistically be implemented?
Cancer exists in all of us too, doesn't mean we should all embrace cancer.
Kevin Scott
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Hunter Davis
>How do we deal with this issue...?
EXACTLY TO WHAT ISSUE ARE YOU REFERRING?
Xavier Hall
It's in the first sentence of my post? Please try to read over it again, at a slower pace. If you are still having trouble try to ask a parent.
So you are saying that we should ignore the fact that experts and analysts have the same voting power as someone who barely passed high school? This is quite clearly a serious issue.
Andrew Phillips
YOU ARE ANSWERING YOUR OWN QUESTION; YOU POSTED THAT DEMOCRACY "TREATS ALL CITIZENS EQUALLY", DESPITE INEQUALITY BEING THE NATURAL NORM, SO IF YOU ARE AWARE THAT DEMOCRACY CONTRADICTS SUCH BASIC PRINCIPLE, AND STILL DO NOT REALIZE THAT DEMOCRACY IS INTRINSICALLY FLAWED —THUS, BEYOND ANY "AMENDMENT"— YOU ARE MENTALLY IMPAIRED, OR DELUDED.
WHY WOULD YOU "DEAL" WITH SYSTEMIC ISSUES RATHER THAN ADDRESSING THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM; ID EST: THE SYSTEM ITSELF?
THE ACTUAL ISSUE IS DEMOCRACY ITSELF; DEMOCRACY MUST BE ERADICATED, NOT IMPROVED.
Angel Edwards
Replace it with what though?
Gavin Wood
PHILOSOPHER KANGS :DDD
Christopher Richardson
Equality before the law
Wyatt Bailey
WITH A NATIONAL SOCIALIST REPUBLICANIST SYSTEM, ADAPTED TO THE PARTICULARITIES OF THE COUNTRY IN WHICH IT IS IMPLEMENTED.
William Bell
Mass ritual suicide of every man woman and child.
Luke Murphy
>How do we deal with this issue, in a way that is not only effective, but could also realistically be implemented? We cannot and should not.
Dominic Sanchez
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Jacob Johnson
Nothing better?
Oliver Collins
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Evan Ward
THAT IS THE BEST SYSTEM; ANYTHING BETTER COMES AFTER NATIONSTATES HAVE BECOME REDUNDANT, POLITICS SUPERFLUOUS, AND THE KOSMOS HAS REACHED ITS TELOS.
Landon Wright
>How do we deal with this issue, in a way that is not only effective, but could also realistically be implemented? Boost public education for smarter voters and atomize bureaucracy locally to get more politically aware, invested citizens.
Xavier Mitchell
t. conformist simpleton
Jace White
the problem is dealt with. post-democracy. now you have the illusion of democracy
Julian Cruz
Wow, now that is what I call a successful system. I am a nut-z now.
Hudson Thompson
t. not minimally invested in politics beyond ideology and Veeky Forums memes
Nathan King
Limit suffrage. Holy shit this isn't rocket science. Just make it where only a certain subset of the population can vote. Old USA did property owning white males, Rhodesia I think had only educated citizens voting, etc.
It doesn't matter what limit you use, just so long as the system keeps the poor and stupid from voting, but doesn't keep the middle class from voting.
Dylan Brooks
>My opinions matter more than other peoples opinions and therefore all authority should be given on to me to make the best decisions for everyone: the post
Zachary Davis
>literally gets bombed to hell by foreign forces >hurr dat meanz itz a failure
Not even a Nazi but c'mon
Alexander King
Yes, destroy ALL employers
Michael Moore
>missing the point
Why am I not shocked?
Cameron Brooks
The problem with democracy is that people keep insisting that representative democracy is democracy.
Inequality exists, so not every citizen will share the same fate. But I can see no argument against every citizen having one vote on matters that concern them; do less than equal citizens not have even their own fate? If they want to press their privileged-unequal status to get what they want, they can spend money to do it. If they want to remedy their disadvantaged-unequal status, they can use their vote to help society.
Caleb Bell
>hurr dat meanz itz a failure Yes,I think that's a valid definition of failure
Hunter Diaz
Yeah, but due to outside forces, not of its own failings.
You might be the healthiest man alive but just because you got shot to death doesn't invalidate that fact
Liam Gomez
So who picks which subset can vote? How do you pick them?
If you live under laws, you get a vote in determining them. If you keep property, you pay the state to protect it. If there is a treasury, everyone gets one share. Simple.
Ethan Taylor
Isn't the point that I'm simple and conformist because I don't support a reactionary or revolutionary position? Or whatever fresh notion you happen to be standing for?
Mason Taylor
>invade another country >that country retaliates >it's that country's fault
Aiden Thomas
I need to know this: are you pretending to be retarded?
Zachary Lewis
>Yeah, but due to outside forces, not of its own failings. Falling due to outside forces is exactly the sign of weakness. If it was strong that would not have happened. >You might be the healthiest man alive but just because you got shot to death doesn't invalidate that fact nice goalpost move, but the healthiest man in the world doesn't sit in a chair and wait to be shot, he would preempt an attack.
Ryder Watson
It literally does not matter. Just throw out all your ideas about representation and egalitarianism and ask yourself from a pragmatic standpoint
"What will produce good government and solve this problem?"
And the answer is limit the voting base. How the limit gets set up, whether its a law or in the constitution, it doesn't matter.
John Moore
>"What will produce good government and solve this problem?"
So when two groups have two different answers to this question, which one gets voting rights, and which one doesn't? How do you pick between the two?
Christopher James
Are you pretending to miss the point?
Because it's clear that the fall of Nazi Germany was caused by the actions of Nazi Germany. If you kick a horse, you don't blame the horse for kicking back (yeah, yeah, the kick came from a different horse, you got the point).
Kevin Brown
From a pragmatic standpoint, what is a good government?
Leo Ortiz
So 51% of people should decide on the fate of the 49%?
Ian Perez
Then we can describe representative democracy as a fraction of a percent deciding on the fate of virtually 100%.
I don't assume every anti-democratic poster wants an absolute tyranny, why do anti-democratic posters always assume I want an equivalent 'absolute democracy'? as if such a thing is possible
If you were among the hundred people a particular policy would affect, would you want a say in whether and/or how it was implemented?
Isaiah Kelly
I think more education is good, but I think one of the problems with this as a solution is that people who say it often assume that once people are "educated", they will then share their own views. When that doesn't happen, people will probably still accuse people who disagree with them as being uneducated.
Sebastian Martinez
The problem arises with the question of how exactly will that 100 people be consulted? A dialogue process? Everyone getting in a big circle and discussing what would work best and benefit everyone?
And what when it's not 100 people, but 1,000 people? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? 1,000,000,000?
"hurr hurr 51% says we should eat the other 49% majority rules get fucked :^)" is obviously a stupid strawman, but the point remains: Short of representation, how do you get a say in a particular matter? Massive decentralization?
Robert Myers
A government the majority of citizens thinks is good. Again, it really doesn't matter. Its not a matter of who gets voting rights, its a matter of who doesn't. Any system that excludes the very poor and the very low IQ is a good system. You can have a lively debate of ideologies while still limiting it from stupid people.
You could do it via a civics test for voting rights and you'd still solve like 90% of our problems.
Aaron Allen
>The problem arises with the question of how exactly will that 100 people be consulted? A dialogue process? Everyone getting in a big circle and discussing what would work best and benefit everyone?
The question is whether the people should be consulted.
>And what when it's not 100 people, but 1,000 people? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? 1,000,000,000?
When it's 1,000,000, you figure out a way to give them all a stake in the decision. If it's a decision that affects all of them, they all have a say. Maybe a vote by all million is appropriate, maybe votes by smaller groups or regions would be appropriate. Either way is better than one guy, or an oligarchy, making decisions that are good for them and their class, but bad for society as a whole.
1,000,000,000 already implies massive decentralization, or massive totalitarianism. States don't need to be that large.
>"hurr hurr 51% says we should eat the other 49% majority rules get fucked :^)" is obviously a stupid strawman, but the point remains: Short of representation, how do you get a say in a particular matter? Massive decentralization?
One would think it's an obvious strawman, but I have to answer it every single time I try to talk about democracy.
Lucas Richardson
>A government the majority of citizens thinks is good.
What about the subjects, the non-voting residents under the government? Does it matter if it's good for them?
>Again, it really doesn't matter. Its not a matter of who gets voting rights, its a matter of who doesn't. Any system that excludes the very poor and the very low IQ is a good system. You can have a lively debate of ideologies while still limiting it from stupid people.
So by excluding the poor from voting, you ensure the government will not have policies that help people escape poverty, but rather policies that trap people in poverty.
If you exclude those with low IQs, you can decide which regions get more votes by spending money on education and welfare in those areas, and less in areas populated by people you don't like.
>You could do it via a civics test for voting rights and you'd still solve like 90% of our problems.
Have you ever read a civics text? It would cause more problems than it would solve, if it was combined with the representative system.
Adam Gomez
>mfw I weigh 150 pounds >mfw my neighbor weighs 300 pounds >mfw OP thinks my neighbor should get 200% of my vote because we're not equal
Robert Reed
>Healthiest is the Strongest Is this what you wanna say.... Healthiest man is not necessarily the strongest.
Hunter Hernandez
>You could do it via a civics test for voting rights and you'd still solve like 90% of our problems.
I think this is the most reasonable answer. Something that limits the amount of voters, but in a neutral way that evaluates their understanding of politics. Basic knowledge of political history, basic knowledge of macro economics, basic knowledge of policy formation. Putting up a restriction based on age is just arbitrary
Aaron Johnson
It isn't. Who designs the test? Who decides what makes you an informed voter? The person designing the test has power.
Making the restriction based on age prevents people being blocked out of voting by special laws or tests, laws or tests that can be designed to be as impassable as the authorities want.
Daniel Rodriguez
Why not reduce the age limit then? Or increase it? Why is 18 the correct time to vote?
They can be just as limited with an age restriction by taking into account statistics about those demographics. People at that age aren't even fully participating in the labour force, nor do they have much property.
Also why is there no upper limit? People halfway in the grave barely face the consequences of their voting
Brandon Parker
There is no need, it's understood to be arbitrary, 18 is as good as any.
The point being, having the standard based on age cannot be used to pervert policy in the way a subjective test that judges whether you agree with the existing government enough to be permitted to support them can.
>People at that age aren't even fully participating in the labour force, nor do they have much property.
Their contribution is irrelevant, we aren't ants expected to produce for the good of the hive; and their property ownership is only relevant when considering how much they might owe in taxes, property protection being the primary purpose of government and law.
Jayden Powell
You don't. The inequality is irrelevant, because 99.9999% of people are equally bad at government.
Democracy is simply a way to divide power up. Otherwise, it centralizes and become horribly oppressive. Democracy stalls and prevents oppression significantly better than any other form of government, even if it doens't have a 100% success rate.
Samuel Johnson
have you ever read Brave New World?
Bentley Sullivan
The question really is, how has the material reality changed and how should that efect politics and governmental structure. We have instantaneous communications, and portable connected PCs.
Shoul this in no way reflect in our political systems? Voting every 4 years? Do we still need to ride carriages to some far away place to cast a vote and news about events spreads around slowly? Do we not have textual visual and audio communications freely and easily available on on levels of society?
Easton Barnes
If the poor and stupid can't vote, what keeps them protected from laws prejudiced towards them? They are people too, you know.
Ryan Butler
This. It's time we handed over government to a computer system. This would be the easiest way to implement the "get a vote based on whether the issue affects you" idea proposed by The computer would keep track of individuals' sources of income, and allot a vote when there is a bill that would affect that. Of course our economy is complex enough that anything could reasonably affect everyone, so we'd have to approximate first, second, and third order effects. Maybe even give partial votes to people less affected.
If there are unintended consequences, the system is agile enough that another vote can be held with an updated voter bloc.
This system I just made up off the top of my head, but I do think that a computer system could govern better.
Connor Peterson
>So you are saying that we should ignore the fact that experts and analysts have the same voting power as someone who barely passed high school? Yes.
Because they can also intervene to the press to make their expert opinions known to the wider electorate.
Justin Gutierrez
I feel like you don't realize you're on Veeky Forums. user there probably wants to gas them or something.
Blake Jones
We should think of the term 'politician' in the same way we think of the term 'accountant', as a person who advises you what to do with your vote/money, but who also doesn't then control your vote/money so long as you have hired them.
If fifty percent of the country thought Obama made the best decisions, then he could just ask them to vote with him in a direct democracy. The system clearly relies on the government acting against the will and interest of the people it is supposed to represent.
Connor Gray
>despite the fact that inequality exists within each one of us.
It also exists in the economy, and it also exists de facto just by having a state or government.
But I don't see how the existence of inequality means that inequality is a problem within democracy.
Democracy is after all an ideology that says people should rule themselves, rather than the other way around.
Eli Smith
Equality is not an inherent feature of democracy. Plenty of democratic societies have legislated discrimination, religious totalitarianism, classism etc
Andrew Allen
Hobbes had the right idea.
My ideal form of government would be a (possibly theocratic) autocratic government with a strong central ruler, supported by "secret police" agencies that conducted tight surveillance against its civilian population like the NSA. However, I'd also enjoy constant survelliance on our own leaders so that we can hold them accountable as well. Democracy is a failure, people get their political views from comedy sketch shows. Voter turnout is always low across the board in western nations. America is the most glaring example of democracy's failure
There's no need for privacy rights. If you're hiding something its likely bad anyway. May offend your 21st century entitled sensibilities but its true. Nobody needs complete rivacy
Lucas Gutierrez
The biggest problem of democracy is NOT the inequality, it is the lack of education and informations
Joseph Wilson
All you did is give all the power to whoever controls the secret police (or the person who controls their purse strings)
The greatest feature of democracy is that people get the government they deserve. A fool can only gain power if other fools give it to him
Brandon Turner
Absolute sovereign would be without checks or balances save for perhaps the most dire of circumstances.
Hobbes was right though, people are fucking animals that can't be trusted. They need to be watched. A CCTV camera in every home would cut down on so much crime: would significantly deter and curtail child molestation, rapes, murders, domestic abuse. Imagine how quickly you could respond to a crime if you had teams of people watching broadcasts of everyone? The police would also wear body cameras themselves too. Nobody would be without their own personal camera maybe, at least not government employees.
Tell me how this wouldn't result in a better, less violent society.
Ian Brooks
This is how plenty of failed states are run. It doesn't work in the real world.
Unless of course you consider countries like Saudi Arabia and North Korea beacons of prosperity
Adam Bailey
>once one kingdom decided to invade another country and got their asses kicked so this is an inherently flaw of all kingdoms
You have to be pretending
Nathaniel Adams
The idea of "crime" itself is not universal, control in your system would still be in the hands of the person at the head of said controls who then has the power to decide what is and isn't "crime" by using peoples personal and intimate details against them
Adam Nelson
>It is known that one of the biggest issues with democracy is the fact that it treats all citizens as equals Really? Who thinks this is an issue? What makes it an issue? Or are you talking out of your ass?
James Price
People who think like that fantasies or a world where authoritarianism works in their favor and the government is made up of people like him who would agree with their very particular point of view. They never think of a world where their views are the ones deemed ignorant and they are now the marginalized
Landon Carter
Okay, just heavily invest in a very sophisticated internal affairs agency, rotate the police every so often etc etc
It's easy to prevent that stuff from happening
Ryan Hall
>fascist countries aren't inherently warlike wew lad
Kevin Scott
Still doesn't account for the very real situation when a police force with all the power in the world doesn't want to "rotate". How would go then force the government to act in your interest when it is in their interest to stay in power?
Ethan Lee
>in a perfect world... just stop, you're being very silly right now
Lol no leader are oeopke Who cotrol People no admisnistrator an second ppl in the same nation has diferent interest the comon good doesn't exist
Dylan Turner
Ditch democracy. Republicanism works pretty well with the right caliber of citizen, but otherwise something much more autocratic would probably be in order.
Aiden Gray
>This system I just made up off the top of my head, but I do think that a computer system could govern better. A computer-assisted one would be nice. Kinda like an auto-pilot of administrative duties.
Landon Murphy
Probably because they are? I'm sorry but what passes for an educated citizen is quite frankly an idiot, even when they agree with me I can see how deficient their education was. Plus, not all universities/majors/students are created equal, someone who studies say women's studies at a shitty uni and don't apply themselves don't deserve to be on the same level of regard as someone who actually put an effort at a decent educational institution with a worthwhile subject.
Michael Rodriguez
Did user have a stroke?
Wyatt Sanchez
>How do we deal with this issue, in a way that is not only effective, but could also realistically be implemented? Meritocracy.
I like the idea of Greece's former Minister of Economy, making all workers (and ONLY workers, i.e., CEO has a large portion of the company, but there aren't investors whose sole contribution was "having money when the company was founded") own portions of the corporations they work for. That way we do away with the corporatist bullshit that has plagued western """"democracies"""".
Of course, this is such a break from the norm that we'd probably need violent revolutions to install it, and chances are that people at the top will always go corrupt so it's doomed to fail either way.
Ayden Roberts
>It is known that one of the biggest issues with democracy is the fact that it treats all citizens as equals, despite the fact that inequality exists within each one of us. But what grounds do you have by which to determine the inequality of individual people? Even if you assume that the inequality between them is large enough to be significant, you also need a system by which to decide where it comes from and how to regulate power according to those differences.
The biggest issue with democracy isn't egalitarianism, it is virtue. We see this with Franklin, we see this with Jefferson, we see this to a certain extent with Rousseau, we certainly see this with Robespierre and we even see it in monarchist Voltaire and anti-revolutionary Burke: a democracy only works as long as the people are virtuous (or at the very least able to separate volonté générale from volonté de tous). If they stop being virtuous, the need for a monarch increases. But then again, how do you ensure the monarch is just?
The problem with a meritocracy is how you decide merit. I also support this idea in essence, but meritocracies quickly tend to devolve into aristocratic/oligarchic in-groups. Britain has Oxbridge and France the Grande Écoles, but what more have they become other than buddy ingroups? French and British leadership isn't exactly more competent than that of other European nations. Quite the contrary in many cases.